Lee Woodruff has long wanted to write what she calls a “real-life” novel, the kind she loves that lets “you read about someone else’s ordeals and not feel quite so alone.” Books, she says, like Anna Quindlen’s Every Last One, or Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety, personal favorites.
But she’s not sure she would have written the particular debut novel she did, Those We Love Most (Voice, $26.99), to be released Tuesday, if her husband, ABC News’ Bob Woodruff, hadn’t been severely injured and nearly died while reporting in Iraq in 2006.
“It helped me better understand grief and going through hard times and getting to a better place,” she says.